


To lost and hopeless causes

by DeadlyWeiss



Category: Eroica Yori Ai o Komete | From Eroica with Love
Genre: Gen, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:47:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21836206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadlyWeiss/pseuds/DeadlyWeiss
Summary: A painting of St.Jude goes missing, and Klaus and Dorian find themselves in charge of finding it — except nothing is ever as easy as that for them.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 16
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	To lost and hopeless causes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vassalady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vassalady/gifts).



Dorian had had plenty of suitors willing to whisper sweet nothings to him — more than a couple of them actual poets who had composed sonnets to just about every part of his body, ranging from ones of chaste admiration to some that couldn’t be shared with anyone that even shared a passing resemblance to polite company.

But nothing they had ever written or said could compare to the image of the Major sitting in front of him, _in the very living room of Eberbach castle no less _, a slight frown on his face as he said:__

__"I need your help, Dorian."_ _

__No insults, no yelling, not even the usual eye roll that let him know the Major's patience was growing thin._ _

__As a matter of fact, it would have been enough to give Dorian pause, except that the Major had not only called him personally to set up the meeting, he had also stressed how utterly important it was the he came alone and that he made sure that he wasn’t being followed. And knowing the Major as well as he did, with his irritatingly charming passion for carrying out missions to the letter, that could only mean that he was being serious about needing his help._ _

__“You know I can’t deny you, darling.”_ _

__The corner of Klaus’ mouth twitched as he took a folder from the nearby table and gave it to him._ _

__"A couple of days ago, a convent in North Germany was broken into. Nothing was stolen, except for a painting of Saint Jude." Among other things, there was a picture of the painting inside the folder. It wasn’t particularly stunning compared to some others he had seen, with whoever made it having opted to forgo aesthetic mysticism in favor of a more sober portrayal, but it was pretty well-made nonetheless. "The nuns have reasons to believe that the canvas was made from a part of his cloth, making the painting a holy relic."_ _

__"Why not ask NATO?"_ _

__"The painting was originally brought to a museum in Berlin during the early 30’s, as part of a collection of religious art to be examined. When rumors arose about the Nazi’s intentions of starting to seize cultural property, the curator gave away as many of the pieces as possible… a couple of years later, it ended up at the convent.” Klaus took a deep breath, which in Dorian’s opinion betrayed the fact that he was finding it quite hard to care about the painting itself. "As far the government is concerned, the convent acquired it illegally. If NATO were to retrieve it, we'd be under the obligation to either look for the next of kin of the original owner, or take it back to the museum.”_ _

__James would surely throw a fit when he let him know that he’d be taking more time off in Germany than originally planned, but he’d deal with that later._ _

__“What’s the plan?”_ _

____

***

The fact that knowledge about the missing painting had to be kept to the absolutely minimum number of people possible did Dorian’s job quite a bit harder than usual, but since it also meant that he had the perfect excuse to bother the Major at every given chance, he couldn’t really say that the minded it that much. Besides, he was a perfectly capable thief on his own, regardless of what _some_ people would like to think.

“There will be an underground auction for stolen goods in a couple of days in Munich. If I wanted to sell the painting, I would do it there.” 

“Can you get us in?”

Dorian shook his head as he took a bite out of one the snacks Klaus’ butler had prepared for them. The Major had instructed him to not interrupt them and stay out of their conversations, of course, but since they were keeping up the pretense of these being social visits, by the second one Hinkel had gotten the timing of having food ready for them by the time they made it to Klaus’ study down to the minute.

“If you want us to get the Saint Jude out in the middle of an auction night, we’re going to need more than two people, Major.”

“You mean haven’t told that Scrooge of yours?”

“Of course not, you were _very_ clear about it, dear. My lips are sealed.”

Only Klaus could manage to look so suspicious of something from behind a cup of coffee.

***

After about two weeks of work, the night before the auction finally arrived.

They hadn’t been able to get a floor plan of the building on such a short notice and without raising alarm, but after passing by the building as many times as they considered would be prudent, they had managed to figure a schedule of the people coming and going, and they had even agreed on where the pieces to be auctioned were most likely to be stored based on the amount of packages that had been brought inside, and how much of the building’s interior was visible from the street.

If they were right, they had little less than an hour to get it, find the painting, and get back out.

Once inside, the search was made easier by the fact that the building was mostly empty; while the room where the auction itself would take place was lavishly decorated (to the point of tackiness, if Dorian had to say, so many things would detract from the art on display), the only other places in the first floor that had anything significant in them were the kitchen and a room with a couple of monitors, most likely to be used by security to keep an eye on any unruly guests.

By the time they made it to the second floor and where met by a locked door, Dorian was certain it was the one they were looking for.

“I will go to the other room and keep watch.” Klaus waited until he was done picking the lock to start walking away. “Try to focus, we don’t have much time left.”

Dorian ignored both the rows of half-covered statues and the bigger frames, heading straight to the back where the smaller paintings were stored in different racks.

Carefully, he started taking them out one by one, putting them back inside as soon as he got a good enough look at them to confirm that they weren’t the Saint Jude.

He had to give it to whoever was organizing the auction, at least they had gone through the trouble of putting together a decent collection. It was almost a shame that he was sure the Major would have his head if he came out with anything except for the painting they were there for, there were a couple of others that he wouldn’t mind having for himself.

When he finally found it, Dorian couldn’t believe what was seeing. He took a closer look, turned it around, made sure that it wasn’t the dim light of his flashlight playing a trick on his eyes.

While it was indeed the same as the one in the picture the Major had shown him, now that he had in his hands, it wasn’t very hard to notice all the small inconsistencies that didn’t line up — the most important one being that the canvas had been distressed with a chemical process to make it look older than it really was. It was a remarkably good job, and it was most likely good enough to fool a curator that wasn’t specifically looking for it, but Dorian had seen it just enough times to be able to tell it was there.

“Someone’s coming, we need to leave _now_. Did you find the painting?”

Dorian grabbed the Saint Jude and met the Major by the door.

"It's a fake, Major."

“What?”

"It was a fake all along. Someone went through a lot of trouble to make it look much older, the sisters couldn’t have known.” 

The Major practically ripped the painting from his hands. He knew for a fact that Klaus wasn’t able to tell the difference between a fake canvas and an original, but Dorian was just as sure that he was less concerned about the loss of value of the painting and more about the fact that he’d have to be the one to explain to the nuns back at the convent that their holy relic was neither holy nor a relic. 

He’d surely look back at this moment and laugh at the expression of pure dread on the Major’s face.

Unfortunately, the entire thing had costed them just a little too much time, and by the moment they were actually ready to leave, whoever had arrived in the building was already climbing up the stairs. 

Dorian could hear at least two people, and they were turning on the lights of the building as they made their way up.

“Get back there and stay quiet.”

Without a second of hesitation, the Major shoved him back into the room and kept pushing him until they were at the other corner, where the bigger statues and racks were placed, and they both kneeled behind one just tall enough to hide them from view. 

A moment later, two people, a woman and a man, came through the door.

“Are you sure you don’t want your cut?”

“Keep the money. I just want the painting as far away from Germany as possible.”

Dorian squinted, struggling to get a better view of the woman without giving himself or Klaus away. The man clearly had plenty of experience in shady art dealings, and from what he had said was one of the organizers of the auction, but she looked uncomfortable enough for it to be noticeable.

“She looks familiar….”

“What did I say? Be quiet, Eroica.”

He imagined what the woman would look like with her hair covered, and it clicked.

“That’s i! She was in the folder, in a photo with the other nuns.”

Klaus grabbed him by the shirt, pulling him away so they could switch places. 

“She was.” 

The pair in front of them had stopped talked by then, but instead of leaving, they began to walk towards the rack where Dorian had taken the painting from. Which wouldn’t have been too much a problem, given that coming back with a fake was essentially the same as coming back empty handed, except that the Major was still holding it in his hands.

“It’s not here.”

“What? I brought it here myself!”

They needed to act while they still had the element of surprise on their side.

Since the man was clearly the bigger threat and Klaus was closer to him anyway, they didn’t need more than to exchange a brief glance to know what they had to do (and it warmed his heart to think about how in sync they could be when in truly mattered, even with how annoying it was to find himself in life-threatening situations). The Major left the painting on the floor between them, then ran towards the man before he had a chance to react, and tackled him with all the weight of hid body. 

Meanwhile, Dorian moved towards the door. The woman’s attention was fixed on Klaus out of sheer surprise, but he didn’t want to risk her running away while the Major was distracted.

After a moment of struggle, the man was left on the floor, unconscious, and Klaus stood up. His gun was still in its holster, but it was clearly visible from the way he was resting his hand on top.

“Don’t make me shoot you.”

The woman raised both hands, but didn’t stop moving towards the door.

“Your name is Klaus, isn’t it?” He said nothing. “You need to understand… imagine if anyone found out…”

“So you helped a group of criminals steal it? How did you even find out it wasn’t real?”

“I studied art before taking my vows. The Mother Superior said it was God’s will that had brought me to the convent so I could help with its conservation.”

The woman either didn’t realize that Klaus was trying his damn hardest to give her a chance to give herself up and end this without further trouble, or was stalling for time so someone else would arrive. Whatever the case, she clearly had no intention of letting them leave with the painting — and so Dorian rose the frame over his head, hitting her with one singe, quick blow.

“Ugh!”

Klaus caught her before she hit the floor, and after taking a quick look at her wound to make sure it wasn’t severe, he put her down.

“You hit her.” If Dorian could read minds, he was sure he’d get to hear the Major debate himself between shouting at him for being careless, shouting at him for having knocked a nun out cold, and being pleased about the result. Finally, he seems to settle for staring at him disapprovingly. “With the painting.”

“Please, darling, it’s hardly the first time you’ve seen me defile the sanctity of a religious figure.” He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “But I believe your subconscious would have a thing or two to say about you having shot a sister.”

Klaus cursed as he leaned down to make sure that she was just unconscious and not actually hurt, then cursed some more as took a bit of rope from one of the covered statues and used it to tie them up.

“If you want to keep the secret, Major, I won’t tell anybody what happened.”

“It’s pointless. Once I take her in, word will get out.” Looking comforting was not exactly easy while in the back of an illegal auction house they had broken into, but Dorian tried anyway. “Tough luck for them. Now I’m _really_ pissed off.”

***

As unfortunate as the result of the mission had been (which, to be fair, they had _absolutely no way_ of seeing coming — who could have known the painting had been altered from the beginning?), they had completed it, so Dorian fully expected Klaus to go back to staying as far away from him as humanly possible until the next time they were forced to work together by the circumstances.

What he did not expect was for the Major to call him a couple of weeks after, this time setting up the meeting at a café in Bonn.

“Here.” 

As soon as he took a seat, Klaus handed him a square package wrapped in brown paper.

Part of Dorian hoped that Klaus had asked to see him because he needed help with something else, but since he figured that the Major wouldn’t be giving him something confidential in a café in the middle of a really busy street, he went ahead and pulled back the paper until he could get a look at what was inside.

…It was the painting of Saint Jude.

“The museum didn’t want it back. The Mother Superior told me to keep it, but I have enough useless pieces of artwork lying around already.” In that moment, Dorian had to bite his tongue to resist the urge of pointing out what the whole moment felt like. ”I figured this was better than throwing it away.”

"Major, do you know what Saint Jude is the patron of?" The Major shrugged. “Well, never mind. Since you’re already here, why don’t you have breakfast with me?”

Klaus didn’t say anything, but he did raise a hand to get the waiter to come over to the table.

Perhaps his own cause wasn’t so hopeless after all.


End file.
